On The Nature Of The Domain Name And Legal Protection

Internet has laid out a luxuriant new world for us in the recent ten years with its fast development, whereas the rules and laws of the realistic world have been austerely challenged by the various problems from this cyberspace. As an example, a succession of cyberpiracy cases has occurred since the end of 1995. Many famous brands or companies' titles have been preemptively registered as domain names on the Internet by overseas organizations. All these have aroused people's attention to domain name and its related legal problems. This is the background of this dissertation, and the aim is to expound the author's understanding in the legal character of domain name, to put forward suggestions for the legal protection of domain name, and to make a contribution towards the legal construction of this field. Firstly the dissertation looks back on the development of domain name, and then makes a brief introduction of its technological definition and working principles. This part could be the preparation for the following analysis of the legal character of domain name.The second part is the emphases of this dissertation. This section has especially introduced the various viewpoints on the legal character of domain name. Then the author has made a detailed comparison and analysis on these viewpoints and consequently pointed out their advantages and disadvantages. On the basis of the above studies, the author arrives at the conclusion that the legal character of domain name should be regarded as a new kind of intellectual property right, i.e., right of web identification. It is determined by the character of domain name .The third part mainly deals with the legal protection of domain name. According to the particular characteristics of domain name, such as its technological elements and its registration, and together with the analysis of entanglements concerned with domain name, the author makes his proposals in two aspects, i.e., registration and dispute solvent mechanism as well as judicature protection. For the first aspect, NSI rule, UDRP of ICANN, and the policy of CNNIC have been enumerated. For judicature protection, the advanced experiences from American, German and Britain have been introduced and compared with that of China. Besides, the dissertation discusses the technical measures taken to resolve the domain name dispute. As a legal objective developed with net technology, we should not ignore the impact caused by the technical factor.The dissertation finally puts forward some suggestions for China's legal protection system of domain name.